


The name so buried in her

by godbewithyouihavedone



Category: Shoujo Kakumei Utena | Revolutionary Girl Utena
Genre: F/M, Fairy Tale Style, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-02
Updated: 2016-10-02
Packaged: 2018-08-19 03:50:23
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,778
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8188519
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/godbewithyouihavedone/pseuds/godbewithyouihavedone
Summary: Once upon a time, a brother and sister lived at the edge of the forest.  Their parents had prayed to protect them from evil.  Their parents never lived to see what they had done.
Dios and Anthy, before the Prince and the Rose Bride.





	

Once upon a time, a man and a woman lived in a small house at the edge of the forest. They had children, as men and women often do. Each night, they knelt in front of the trees and prayed. The wish was always the same, night after night: let evil not touch their children.

They wanted their babies to see the next night. They wanted to never watch their small faces grow bloodless with sickness and starving.

Parents rarely know what they ask for.

Still, the children lived, and that was enough: a boy and a girl, beautiful and gentle and close. The boy was much admired in the villages around them for his nobility and goodness.

When he was not yet old, a great monster came tearing through the woods. Word of his approach spread, for he left ruined houses, crushed trees, ashes. The people whispered that he was headed straight for the castle of the king. The king said whoever could defeat the monster would win the hand of his youngest, most beautiful daughter. 

The boy at the edge of the forest went in search of the monster. He wore his mother’s cloak on his shoulders, his father’s old sword on his belt, and his sister’s kiss on his forehead.

He tracked it to a grove outside the castle. The monster was as tall as two houses, with ten feet and sharp spines along its back. It had a great gaping mouth that glowed with fire. It crushed the trees underneath its feet and hissed smoke.

The boy was afraid, back then, but he drew the sword and ran through the monster’s mouth. Its blood dripped down his arms, burning the grass beneath his feet to black dust. The monster lunged for him in its death-throes. Even though he felt the great weight of its bulk on him and the pierce of its spines, his bones did not crack and his skin did not bleed.

The monster fell and groaned and died, wallowing in ashes. The boy went to the castle and presented his sword, stained with blood, to the king. The king embraced him, for saving the kingdom. He called forth his youngest, most beautiful daughter.

“What is your name, my new husband?” she asked.

“My name is Dios,” he said.

“Prince Dios,” said the grateful people of the kingdom.

But he did not feel like a prince. After the wedding night, he returned to the edge of the woods.

The trees in the edge of the woods were crushed, and the grass was burnt. What had been the house of the man and woman who prayed for their children’s protection was a smoldering ruin. From within the crumbling walls, the smell of blood and decay hung in the air. The man and woman were dead.

Standing in the doorway, in a red dress, was his sister. Her eyes were quiet. She had seen the monster, as well, and felt his fiery breath, and strained under his massive bulk, and been stabbed by his spines. Evil had not harmed her.

He took him with her to live in the castle. He made her promise that she would not tell anyone that she, too, could defy the monster. A gallant prince was a hero for his power. A girl, who could say?

Instead, she kept roses in the gardens at the palace. When men came to court the sister of the prince, he told them she was only a child. But women married earlier, at court. Handmaids of the princesses teased her, calling her the Rose Bride, wedded to her blooms.

“My name is Anthy,” she said. They did not listen.

Prince Dios left often, journeying far and wide to save all the princesses of the world. The more beautiful girls he saved from evil, the more word grew. Soon, he left for so long not even his wife the princess knew where he had gone.

His sister could not sleep or eat for missing him. She stayed in the garden, tending to the roses. She dug in the dirt, and planted seeds, and watered blossoms, and brushed off bugs. One month grew to three, with no care for the passing of the days.

One night, she watched the dawn approach while she clipped branches. But instead of the bright colors, her eyes began to close and she saw only a dark expanse. At the edge of the woods, her mother and father waited, still and smiling. The monster was waiting too, glowing mouth and sharp teeth warped into a grin.

The prince’s sister knew that if she continued with her task, she would not be able to survive. She had thought she did not want another day, in her loneliness, but now her heart seized with fear. So she lay down in the garden, with a rock for a pillow, and for the first time in three months she slept.

The prince returned, wearing a garland of honors, to find her still asleep, and could not wake her. Instead, he waited at her side, sitting and sleeping next to her through the cold and the storms. The princess brought him food.

A year after Anthy fell asleep, she awoke. Seeing her brother by her side, she realized that he had not left her for good. He still loved her as much as when they shared the house at the edge of the woods. And so she no longer courted death.

One year, the king died. His oldest son became king after him, and his children the heirs. The princess, Dios’s wife, had no children. But the story of the Prince had spread throughout the many kingdoms he journeyed through, and the countless maidens he saved, and the evil men that could not harm him. So the new king let the prince and his sister remain in the castle.

Many more years passed, and the king’s children ruled with fair hands. Dios’s princess grew old and died. But in each generation, there were girls who needed rescue. The castle had never quite been a home to him. The newest king built a kitchen for his cooks where the gardens had been. His sister no longer wanted to stay.

So the prince and his sister left the castle, and they journeyed across kingdoms. She found a barn by the edge of woods, where the owners had left it. It was not a house, but Anthy loved it all the same. She bought animals in the market, goats and chickens and cows and a little monkey. She cared for them just as she had the roses. Prince Dios rode a white horse, and when he was home, she brushed its mane and polished its hooves.

By now, the prince had fame throughout the world. Any time a maiden was in trouble, other heroes became afraid, for they had no immunity to evil. Heroes and fathers and kings called upon him, and he answered. After defeating the monster, he saved two other maidens in that year. Now, every time he tried to rest, another messenger arrived with a desperate plea.

When he returned to the barn to visit his sister, he collapsed in the hay. His eyes closed. He saw the edge of the woods from his childhood, and his parents standing in front of the trees, with his princess, and the monster behind them. All lined up, all smiling.

He opened his eyes and cried out, telling his sister what he had seen.

“I’m right here,” she said, and cradled him in her arms. “No, don’t move!” she told him.

“But they call for my help,” he said.

“Stop, please, do not fight anymore. You will die.”

Many men had gathered around their barn, pounding on the door and asking for the prince. They needed their daughters to be rescued. A thousand men waited outside. He tried to get up, to go to them.

“My brother, show them you are ready to face the evils of the world,” she said. “Draw your sword.”

He drew his sword, tempered with the blood of the monster, and she stood before him. She stepped into its blade, and it pushed through her chest. He shook, but could not move from exhaustion. His sister drew closer and closer, until even the hilt lay buried in her body, and then the skin healed over, and he was left with his hand against her chest. His sword and his power and his life: hers.

“Go to sleep,” she said. “You can’t save anyone now, so you have to sleep.”

He lay back in the hay. He did not stir through the pounding on the walls and doors of the barn.

His sister kissed his forehead. She went outside, to face the mass of people gathered, calling for the prince.

“Who are you?” a man asked.

Ages ago, her brother had told her never to reveal her powers. But she knew they could not harm her, now, and she did not care what they believed.

“Dios is no longer here,” she said. “He belongs to me alone now. I sealed him away where you can never touch him again!”

“Witch,” they called her.

Inside the barn, Dios closed his eyes and slept.

The people took their swords and ran them through her flesh,. She could feel every inch of steel, in her chest and legs and arms and neck. They stabbed her with a thousand swords. She twitched, doubled over, but she did not die, though she had never felt pain like this.

A year later, Dios awoke. Outside the barn, his sister curled up near the door, still shaking and screaming. The whispers of “witch” and the scraping of metal remained, though the people had left long ago.

He could not save her. She was his sister. He no longer had the sword that slew the monster. Every time he drew close, he heard the whispered hatred and thought of what the people would do if they knew he still lived.

So he knelt near her, and roused her, and they walked out into the woods.

As the years drew on, she learned to hide her pain, kept her body steady, only let out a whimper every so often. He learned what he could be, without the maidens of the world and their protectors clamoring for his virtue. He sought out evil again, but not to conquer it. The legend of the prince was still told, but no one could remember his name, only that he met his end at the hands of a witch. She began to smile and smile and smile.


End file.
